About

The MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab is a research and development laboratory for the built environment that measures the financial and economic performance of innovation in real estate, design and planning.

Research Pillars

Empirical Outcome

Fundamental Research

The Innovation Frontier

Empirical Outcome

Measuring value across the innovation lifecycle

Empirical Outcome

A real estate technology lifecycle to measure progress and technological diffusion

Fundamental Research

Identifying products, processes & technology for real estate
The Value of Design

Empirical Outcome

Research on design metrics

Empirical Outcome

Linking design to financial and economic outcomes

Fundamental Research

Identifying pathways for linking design to finance

Fundamental Research

Incorporating designers into financial
CRE Tech and Innovation

Empirical Outcome

Financial performance of technology startups in the built environment

Empirical Outcome

Autonomous technologies impact on the future of real estate

Fundamental Research

Technologies for the built environment database and analytics

Fundamental Research

New data sets and variables scouting
Entrepreneurship for Cities Places & People

Empirical Outcome

Linking entrepreneurship performance to places

Empirical Outcome

Entrepreneurial nursery at the building scale

Fundamental Research

A shared place typology underwriting for real estate

Fundamental Research

The role of real estate in economic growth
Wide Data Experiment

Empirical Outcome

The expansion architectural and planning data applicable to instituional resl estate

Empirical Outcome

3000 + variables

Empirical Outcome

20 data providers

Empirical Outcome

96 data sets

Fundamental Research

Data science and machine learning strategies for real estate

Fundamental Research

A geometric, geospatial, relational database infrastructure

Team

Our team is a community of innovators within MIT’s School of Architecture and Planning. A collection of interdisciplinary scholars and practitioners from the wider real estate, financial economics, econometrics, urban planning and architecture domains.

Team Alumni

  • Zoya Puri
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2017
    )
  • Zixiao Yin
    Computational Planner
    (
    2018
    –
    2018
    )
  • YiFei Lu
    Researcher
    (
    2016
    –
    2016
    )
  • Yair Titelboim
    Urban Tech Analyst
    (
    2017
    –
    2019
    )
  • Xudong Sun
    Computational Data Engineer
    (
    2018
    –
    2020
    )
  • Stephanie Zhou
    Technology Scouting Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2019
    )
  • Sebastian Serralde
    Urban Tech Analyst
    (
    2018
    –
    2019
    )
  • Dr. Schery Bokhari
    Researcher
    (
    2016
    –
    2017
    )
  • Sam Weissman
    postition
    (
    2018
    –
    2018
    )
  • Ryan Stroud
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2018
    )
  • Ruichen Ni
    Technology Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Rhett James
    Technology Scout
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Qianhui Liang
    Urban Data Science Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Phoebe Holtzman
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2018
    )
  • Paige Pitcher
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2017
    )
  • Nicholas Bolland
    position
    (
    2017
    –
    2017
    )
  • Mike Langen
    Researcher
    (
    2018
    –
    2019
    )
  • Max Beatty
    Technology Scout
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Lucy Lyuaio
    Researcher
    (
    2018
    –
    2019
    )
  • Louis Liss
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2018
    )
  • Kun Cheng
    Technology Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Keitaro Bando
    Researcher
    (
    2017
    –
    2018
    )
  • Kecheng Huang
    Technology Scout
    (
    2020
    –
    2020
    )
  • Kaini Huang
    Researcher
    (
    2018
    –
    2019
    )
  • Jordan Owen
    Technology Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Jim Peraino
    User Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2020
    )
  • Hunter Fields
    Data Science and Analytics
    (
    2018
    –
    2019
    )
  • Daniel Fink
    Wide Data Experiment Lead
    (
    2015
    –
    2019
    )
  • Chelsea Watanabe
    Data Analyst
    (
    2019
    –
    2019
    )
  • Ben Masselink
    Technology Scout
    (
    2019
    –
    2019
    )
  • Annie Ryan
    Researcher
    (
    2015
    –
    2017
    )

Vision

Our goal is aligned with our community, we want to build a better built environment. Our principal contribution is in identifying innovations, products and processes that will transform buildings and cities, but we pair this with performance outcomes that can give agency to technology, design and financial investors for incentive alignment.

Engage

This benefits communities by enabling metrics for decision making in planning, real estate and design that can aid analytics-based design reviews, planning and investment committees to make better buildings and cities for people.

Support Us

Becoming a Lab Partner

The Lab is grateful to founding partners for their generous support. Financial support is provided by JLL, RCA and EY, who contribute funding in exchange for knowledge, receiving lab research in advance and one-on-one workshops or webinars. This provides the basis for continuous engagement in an increasingly digital and dynamic built environment.

Share Data With Us

Data is the foundation of the Lab’s mission. We develop and design new infrastructure protocols for integrating data across geometry, geography, financial, economic and social data. We are grateful to our data supporters for providing fundamental data for our research and educational programs. If you would like to contribute data or learn more, please contact reilabcontact@mit.edu.

Learn With Us

Workshop

Learning is core to the Lab’s research dissemination strategy. We work with lab and data partners to develop curriculum that meets their needs. However, we also work other firms, foundations and educational institutions to develop one or multi-day workshops that resolve issues. From urban data infrastructure, automation strategies to the impending building technology we are always working towards creating a better built environment. If you would like to schedule a workshop or discuss developing a program for you, please contact reilabcontact@mit.edu.

Sponsored Research

Sponsored research is an opportunity for the Lab to engage in research directly on an issue or topic relevant to you, contact reilabcontact@mit.edu to learn more.